Unlike western or occidental cola types that apparently have all kinds of animal rests floating around in them (gelatine is used), new and improved (and oriental) Haji Cola is made in compliance with Islamic hygiene regulations and guaranteed halal, albeit admittedly “less tingling” than what you might be used to.

And the stuff is selling like halal hotcakes in Hamburg too, or might one day. But don’t worry, religion does not play a role here, folks (that’s why they call it halal?). Love does. The love of money. Geez, talk about your occidental attitude.

Berlin Police have now begun casting doubts about the truth of the story given by the so-called “Forest Boy” who claims to have lived in a forest somewhere for five years before showing up at Berlin City Hall one day to ask for help, just like that or something.

His recent refusal to co-operate in the investigation to help discover his true identity has made many here suspicious and has even led some officials to believe that he is in fact a “Forrest Gump Boy,” one of those simpleton-like boys who travel around the world in an attempt to meet historical figures, influence popular culture and experience firsthand some of the historic events of the early 21st century (not that anything of historic interest would ever happen here in Berlin, but still).

Something called the Institute for German Economy has just found out that fast research (and other services) carried out using Google saves German companies some 6.84 euros per employee per year. And how did they find this stuff out? I dunno. I guess they googled it or something.

Unfortunately, Google doesn’t seem to be helping the German national debt very much these days. In absolute terms, every German citizen carries 24,904 euros worth of public debt, whatever public debt is worth these days. Are we having a Greece here yet?

Nor blink anymore. Remember the old days when addiction had to do with actual addiction? I mean, with an actual substance? No, I guess you don’t.

Anyways, a new fear industry report tells us that some 560,000 Germans are now “addicted” to the Internet. How shocking or something.

Addiction here means that these poor lamentable victims can no longer stop surfing on their own (that’s why they – and we – need the fear industry, see?). Like the helpless zombies that they are, these addicts live day and night (mostly night) in a so-called “virtual world” because it is there and only there that they can find fulfillment and recognition (albeit virtual fulfillment and virtual recognition).

And their addiction is in fact so way bad out of control that many of these victims (and I really want to stress the word victims here) no longer go to school, university or, gulp, even work (even when they have work, which most probably don’t, and which can also be very addictive, by the way, the work, I mean).

Doesn’t anybody out there care? Other than me (not)?

And doesn’t anybody out there other than me break out in loud laughter when reading ridiculous nonsense like this? Hello? Does anybody read me? Or am I lost in my “virtual world” again? Uh oh. The sun’s coming up.

Always talking about spiritual renewal, faith, the heart, love, apostles, saints and stuff like that, many German Catholics were clearly disappointed with Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to his homeland over the weekend.

“It’s like an obsession with this guy or something,” one irritated non-churchgoer said. “All he ever talks about is freakin’ religion. He didn’t bring up sexual abuse, abortion, celibacy or letting women become priests once. Boring. I thought he’d never leave.”

The pope drew hundreds of thousands of German faithful to services held on stops during his trip, including a final Mass early Sunday that attracted about 100,000 people to an airfield beside Freiburg’s airport.

Germans just love to go on vacation, as you know. And a lot of them are crazy about going on so-called adventure holidays. It is good for the countries they go adventure holidaying in, I guess. It promotes understanding or something, I think. And world peace.

Anyway, one German tourist vacationing in Afghanistan just had the adventure holiday of a lifetime and is now on permanent vacation, along with an unfortunate Afghan who was travelling with him.

Unknown gunmen killed a German tourist and his Afghan companion in central Afghanistan on Saturday. Two other Afghans were wounded when the gunmen opened fire on the van the tourist was travelling in, a senior police officer said.

In August: Two German nationals were killed last month while hiking in mountains near the capital Kabul. Their killers have not been found.

Berlin is more of a hartes Pflaster (tough pavement/place) than you might think (these guys are everywhere).

More and more locals are scouring the city’s streets and bins for empty glass and plastic bottles, which they can turn in to collect a cash deposit. Many of the bottle-collectors say they are forced to do it to make ends meet.

Consumers pay the deposit when they buy drinks in shops and supermarkets – eight euro cents ($0.10) for glass bottles and 25 euro cents for plastic ones. They get their deposits back when they return their empties.

Initially, it was mainly homeless people, alcoholics and drug addicts living on the streets who collected the bottles. But recently, it’s been Berlin’s financially troubled pensioners and long-term unemployed who have turned to collecting the discarded bottles as well.

So what do you want, Germany? The Germans don’t even know themselves what they want with Europe and/or Germany: In a survey this September by Der Spiegel, clear majorities of Germans said that it wasn’t right to help Greece and other countries with the bailout fund and that Germany was not benefiting from the euro zone. But a clear majority also believed that European institutions should be given more power in a crisis. Classic German schizophrenia again or what?

Not that it matters or anything. In the final analysis nobody is asking you what you want: The European Union is a union not of peoples but of heads of state. “General Franco was a head of state, too.”

Nope, I still don’t know what “Europe” is supposed to mean here, but I keep getting the sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only one living in Europe who feels that way. It’s just that I, as a non-European, have the luxury of being able to admit that I don’t get it and that I don’t really care.

But as this latest crisis develops, one thing seems certain. Whatever Europe may be, it clearly has something to do with illusion. Illusion with an s on the end. With lots of illusions. One illusion after the next. Here’s one, for example:

Europe is founded on the illusion of German money without German control. And that bargain has worked, until now, because of the way Germany sees itself within Europe (which itself, as the polls suggest, is an illusion).

The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.
- Frederic Bastiat

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.
- Margaret Thatcher

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
- H.L. Mencken

It is like information theory; it is noise posing as signal so you do not even recognize it as noise. The intelligence agencies call it disinformation. If you can float enough disinformation into circulation you will totally abolish everyone's contact with reality, probably your own included.
- Philip K. Dick

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
- Henry Kissinger

Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan, who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense. This nonsense has been noisily proclaimed as immortal wisdom by mercenary followers and readily accepted as such by all fools, who joined into as perfect a chorus of admiration as had ever been heard before. The extensive field of spiritual influence with which Hegel was furnished by those in power has enabled him to achieve the intellectual corruption of a whole generation.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

German schadenfreude knows no bounds, particularly when it comes to the United States. The country loves to feel superior to a superpower like America. Yet Germany also harbors a childish infatuation with Obama — one which has little political grounding. The reasons are psychological. …The criticism of America has always been a bit infantile. One is familiar with the theory from psychoanalysis, when people talk about transference, or when suppressed feelings or emotions are overcome by projecting them onto others. It may work for a while, improving one’s feeling of self-worth by devaluing an imagined adversary. But it always falls short. Which is why the ritual must be constantly carried out anew.
- Jan Fleischhauer

Intellectuals, in the words of the writer Eric Hoffer, "cannot operate at room temperature." They are excited by daring opinions, clever theories, sweeping ideologies, and utopian visions of the kind that caused so much trouble during the 20th century. The kind of reason that expands moral sensibilities comes not from grand intellectual "systems" but from the exercise of logic, clarity, objectivity, and proportionality.
- Steven Pinker

The difference between Greek pessimism and the oriental and modern variety is that the Greeks had not made the discovery that the pathetic mood may be idealized, and figure as a higher form of sensibility. Their spirit was still too essentially masculine for pessimism to be elaborated or lengthily dwelt on in their classic literature... The discovery that the enduring emphasis, so far as this world goes, may be laid on its pain and failure, was reserved for races more complex, and (so to speak) more feminine than the Hellenes had attained to being in the classic period.
- William James

A doctrine must not be understood, but has rather to be believed in. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength. Once we understand a thing, it is as if it had originated in us. And, clearly, those who are asked to renounce the self and sacrifice it cannot see eternal certitude in anything which originates in that self.
- Eric Hoffer

It is unrealistic to expect people to see you as you see yourself. If people reach conclusions based on false impressions, they are the ones hurt rather than you, because it is they who are misguided. When someone interprets a true proposition as a false one, the proposition itself isn't hurt; only the person who holds the wrong view is deceived, and thus damaged. Once you clearly understand this, you will be less likely to feel affronted by others, even if they revile you. You can say to yourself, "It seemed so to that person, but that is only his impression."

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